Hello and welcome to this week's installment of Cue by Cue. Apologies for the late post this week, I was extremely busy this weekend.
Today we're going to be listening to 6m4 Blasting Away.
This cue is 68 bars long and was orchestrated by Herbert Spencer.
Just like last week you can see that the cue got rebalanced, going from 6m1 to 6m4. And once again, just like last week, my scan doesn't show it because it's not the final version with the big number in marker.
Now let's listen to the cue together.
At 0:00 the cue begins with a marching variant of the Imperial theme as the stormtroopers head down the street, leading into one last hint of the imperial spy motif from last week's cue at 0:04.
Then we get some tension building at 0:10 as the stormtrooper run towards the hangar, before the brass kicks in with a bang at Han's wide eyes at 0:15.
As the shooting begins, the orchestra roars to life, leading to a Force theme statement at 0:19, climaxing as Luke and Ben belt themselves in around 0:29.
Then we get three brass sustains at 0:33 for the Falcon flying off, followed by some tense ascending music at 0:38 for Han piloting in the cockpit.
Underneath this plays another Force theme statement at 0:41, both of which build into some fast paced brass at 0:59 for the Falcon speeding off. This is quickly joined by a percussion hit at 1:03 as the Star Destroyers pursue.
At 1:07, more tense cockpit music for Luke and Han's argument. Then a return of the repeating fast paced brass at 1:20 as the Star Destroyers start shooting at the Falcon. Then at 1:23 we get some intense brass build up with backing strings as Han discusses what's needed to jump to lightspeed. This builds up to a statement of the Death Star motif at 1:56.
The music then starts to trail off around 2:01, with soft woodwinds to emphasize the defenselessness of Alderaan on the viewscreen. Thus, the cue ends....
This cue was mostly used in the theatrical cut as intended, as far as I can tell. There is a 1 second section from 0:33-0:34 that was snipped out of the film, as you can see I don't have any video for that section. My guess is that the shot of the Falcon flying off was originally longer, but I don't have any definitive proof of that. However, I believe it to be the case because the cue appears to sync correctly with all of the footage in the final cut both before and after that shot.
Curiously, this sequence was actually altered quite heavily in editing, but I believe most of it was done before the cue was written, for the reasons I just explained. That said, there are some interesting continuity errors in the final edit that result from them shuffling shots around. For example, the shot of Luke and Ben buckling in at 0:26 was originally supposed to come after Han's line "strap yourselves in, we're going to make the jump to lightspeed" at 1:47. Further, the shot of Han in the cockpit at 0:38 shows Ben leaving the cockpit, a direct continuation of the shot at 1:47.
As a result of these shots being moved around, we see Luke and Ben strap themselves in, followed by Han sitting alone in the cockpit with Ben leaving it, followed by Ben and Luke running back into the cockpit and arguing with Han for a bit, before being told to strap themselves in and leaving it again.
I'm not really sure why these shots were shuffled around so much, but as I said it doesn't affect the music so for the purposes of this series it's just a fun curiosity.
Anyway, in the Special Edition of the film, this sequence is mostly unchanged, however the shot of the Falcon taking off is replaced with a longer CGI shot where you can actually see it lift out of the Mos Eisley hangar.
As a result of this new shot, the cue's sync breaks, resulting in a couple loops and snips to try to sync it up again. In isolation it sounds pretty terrible. Here's a breakdown of the music edits:
The section from 0:00-0:33 was unchanged.
The section from 0:33-0:35 was cut.
The section from 0:35-0:38 plays three times in a row, with the third time being cut off early by the section from 0:39-end.
This cue was recorded on March 16, 1977, the eighth and final day of the recording sessions. Seven takes were recorded, numbered 203-209. According to the 1997 take log, the performance edit used takes 205, 206 and 209.
This cue has been officially released on four different albums:
1) In 1977 on 20th Century Records' OST album
2) In 1993 on Arista Records' 4-CD Anthology box set
3) In 1997 on RCA Victor's 2-CD Special Edition set
4) In 2018 on Walt Disney Records' Remastered album (remastered OST rebuilt from scratch from the session masters)
More specifically, 6m4 Blasting Away can be heard:
From 2:01-end of track 11 "Mouse Robot and Blasting Off" on the 1977/2018 albums
From 2:01-end of disc 1 track 10 "Mouse Robot/Blasting Off" on the 1993 album
From 1:34-end of disc 2 track 2 "The Millennium Falcon/Imperial Cruiser Pursuit" on the 1997 album.
All sets have clean endings, however only the 1997 set has the opening. Notice I didn't say clean opening, I said opening; every set other than the 1997 chops off the first 16 seconds of the cue.
For the remainder that is available on all three sets, the 1993 and 1997 sets are both brickwalled. They all appear to have the same takes though. The 1977 is of course a remix and should be avoided.
For all of these reasons, the video above ended up being a hybrid edit that uses the 1997 for the first 16 seconds, and then switches over to the 2018 for the rest. Fortunately, the opening of the cue is quieter than the rest, so these opening 16 seconds are not brickwalled on the 1997 set and sound just fine.
That's all I have for today, thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Next week we'll be discussing 6m5N The Destruction of Alderon. See you then!
